Bites Shorts
Small Cafe: Big Flavor
Café Curuba
Named one of the top 10 coffee shops in Miami by the Miami New Times, Café Curuba has been serving freshly brewed coffee to Coral Gables residents since 2014. Located just off Ponce on Almeria, this petite shop bustles in the morning with customers grabbing a coffee and heading to the office or working on-site while sipping an Instagram-worthy cortatido. Debbie Rabinovici, the Colombian-born owner, worked part-time as a barista in New York after college.
What she thought was going to be a weekend job “consumed” her. “I’ve always loved coffee,” she says. “I’m from Colombia.” Rabinovici’s favorite drink? A simple black coffee. As for the source of beans they brew, one has a special significance: Finca La Victoria, a coffee from Nicaragua produced by the family of Mario Lovo, the Gables’ immigration attorney.
Chocolate Fashioned in the Gables
When Persy Berger worked at the now-defunct Biga Bakery on Alcazar in the 1990s, she says many of the customers thought she was the owner. “One day I said to myself, ‘I will have my own bakery in Coral Gables someday,’” she recalls. “Unbelievably, it happened.” The first Chocolate Fashion opened 14 years ago on Andalusia, followed by another on Alhambra and a third on Sunset.
Today each shop brings a sit-down Parisian patisserie vibe, offering macaroons, truffles, croissants and the “best baguette of 2017.” But what they excel at is chocolate, imported from Switzerland and France and then fashioned into such popular items as their chocolate truffle cake.
Everything is made from scratch in their ‘commissary’ on NW 27th Ave.; the kitchen on Andalusia was long ago overwhelmed with making mango mousse, Napoleons, and chocolate-raspberry tarts.—Lizzie Wilcox
Garlic Fever
Speaking of sports bars, the Yard House at the Shops at Merrick Park is exemplary: Cavernous with wooden beams and jumbo screens, a stunning collection of beer, and blaring rock ‘n’ roll. Less known is that its voluminous menu contains a slew of tasty and offbeat Asian selections, from Philippine eggrolls with sweet chili sauce to grilled Korean BBQ beef.
One standout is their shitake garlic noodles with chives. They call it a snack, but it’s really a meal at $6.75. And enough garlic to keep vampires away for a week.
